M. David StoneCanon imageClass D420The Canon imageClass D420 is a little pricy for what it delivers, but it offers an attractive balance of speed, output quality, paper handling, and features for a personal MFP.

High quality output, particularly for text. Reasonably fast. Small size. Duplexer for printing on both sides of a page.

Cons

No automatic document feeder. No fax. No network support.

Bottom Line

The Canon imageClass D420 is a little pricy for what it delivers, but it offers an attractive balance of speed, output quality, paper handling, and features for a personal MFP.

The Canon imageClass D420 ($199 direct) would be a killer mono laser MFP at the right price. Unfortunately, the key phrase in that sentence is at the right price. As it is, the D420 is a more than acceptable choice as a personal MFP for printing, scanning, and copying. It offers acceptably fast print speed, high quality text output, reasonably high quality graphics and photos, and a small enough size to consider sharing your desk with it. However, it doesn't offer quite enough to fully justify the price.

Similar Products

Despite its strength for speed and output quality, the D420 loses some of its luster when you start looking at its lack of other features. Unlike the similarly priced HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP ($199, 3.5 stars), for example, it lacks both fax capability and an automatic document feeder for scanning multipage documents.

It's also limited strictly to connecting by USB, which makes it a definitively personal printer. Even the significantly less expensive Editors' Choice Panasonic KX-MB2000 ($130, 4 stars) that I recently reviewed offers a network connection, giving you a way to share it easily in a micro office as well.

The good news is that the D420 can serve well in the role of personal printer in any size office. At just 12 by 15.4 by 17 inches (HWD), its easy to find space for, and at 27.3 pounds it's light enough for one person to move around easily. It also offers ample paper handling for personal use, with a 250-sheet tray, 1-sheet manual feed, and built-in duplexer for printing on both sides of a page. If you need higher capacity, however, there are no additional options available.

Speed and Output Quality
Setting up the D420 on a Windows Vista system is typical for a USB-connected laser printer, and once set up it works as promised. As I've already mentioned, the printer scored well for both speed and output quality. I timed it on the new version of our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an effective 9.9 pages per minute (ppm), which is an appropriate speed for the 23 ppm rating. That makes it a little slower than the M1212nf, at 11.3 ppm, but faster than the KX-MB2000, at 8 ppm.

On our quality tests, the D420 scored better than most mono laser MFPs for text quality, which is usually the most important issue for mono lasers. It's a little short of what you might want for desktop publishing applications, but more than good enough for any other business use, including printing at small font size. Graphics are typical for a mono laser MFP, making them good enough for any internal business use. Photo quality was good enough for applications like printing recognizable photos from Web pages or printing client newsletters, which is as much as you can expect from a mono laser.

Ultimately the D420 can do the job its meant for and do it well. The only issue, as I've already pointed out, is that it's a little pricy for what it delivers. Compared to the M1212nf, it's slower and has fewer MFP features, but it offers slightly better output quality. It's more directly comparable to KX-MB2000 in MFP features and also faster, but significantly more expensive. That leaves no really compelling argument for choosing it, but it's still a reasonable pick if you don't mind the price.

Read More

About the Author

M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a top company in the gaming industry. David is also an expert in imaging technologies (including printers, moni... See Full Bio

Canon imageClass D420

Canon imageClass D420

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.